gop042208
On the homepage
Music
Out There
Politics
Joe Mauer
Home | Politically Connected | National Politics
Will McCain's 'Action' tour capture independent voters?
Print this story
E-mail this story
Save to del.icio.us
Share on Facebook
Share on DiggMore from National Politics
SELMA, ALA. - John McCain has a long way to go to convince Juanita Gibson of anything.
Gibson, who's black, stood outside the auto shop where she works Monday, eyeing a mostly white crowd gather across the street for the kickoff of McCain's "It's Time for Action" tour. It will take McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, to some of the United States' poorer precincts in an effort to show that he's a different kind of Republican.
Gibson pondered whether the Arizona senator had taken much action to help people like her. "Not that I know of," she said.
That sums up the challenge facing McCain as he tries to woo independent voters and perhaps even break the Democratic stranglehold on voters in places such as rural southwest Alabama. Other stops on his tour this week include economically stressed Youngstown, Ohio; Appalachia in Kentucky, and the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
"It's unlikely his campaigning will change many votes," said Earl Black, a political scientist at Rice University who specializes in Southern politics.
Alabama's Seventh Congressional District, where McCain spent most of Monday, is 62 percent black, with a poverty rate of 24.7 percent. It went for Democratic nominee John Kerry by nearly 2-to-1 over President Bush in 2004.
But, Black said, the trip likely will help McCain in a broader sense, as it reinforces the sense among voters nationally that he's a Republican with an independent streak, occasionally making common cause with Democrats.
McCain wouldn't say whether the legacy of Bush or of the Republican Party would make it harder for him to connect with poor and black voters.
"The American people will judge who they want to vote for not necessarily by the past ... but how that person is going to handle their future," McCain said. "Vision, motivation and plans in ways that we can improve people's lives.
"There must be no forgotten places in America, whether they have been ignored for long years by the sins of indifference and injustice, or have been left behind as the world grew smaller and more economically interdependent.''
Overdraft fees, the bane of Whistleblower readers, are big money for banks, USA Today reports
Maybe I’m naive, but Whistleblower was astonished to read that overdraft fees of the sort that tormented Katie Trottier and numerous other readers are a major profit center for banks, USA Today reporter Kathy Chu reported this week. I guess I labored under the impression that the fees still reflected some actual cost on the [...]
Recent posts
 Buy Foreclosed PropertiesSearch 8500 pre-foreclosure, auction and bank-owned properties in the metro area. Start now! |
Win tickets to the Yer Cronies Beach Party with Yer Cronies and Joey Ryan & the Inks at 7th Street Entry.Vita.mn presents the Yer Cronies Beach Party with Yer Cronies and Joey Ryan & the Inks at 7th Street Entry on July 25. |
Comment on this story | Read all 1 comments | Hide reader comments